- Title
- The relationship between early life stress and working memory in adulthood
- Creator
- Goodman, Jade Brooke
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Early life stress refers to abuse, neglect, adversity in the household environment or violence outside the home, occurring in childhood. These forms of early life stress are highly prevalent across the globe. Long-term impairments in adult working memory have been found by some studies to be linked to early life stress. Working memory is the cognitive function required to store and manipulate information in one’s mind for use in goal-oriented behaviour. Working memory is used in many everyday activities, such as reading, writing and driving, and when following instructions or directions. The broad aim of the present research was to investigate the relationship between early life stress and working memory. We aimed to examine whether the form of early life stress assessed, or the type of working memory assessment used, affected the strength of the relationship between these two constructs. Specifically, the aims of the present research were to: 1. Estimate the prevalence and co-occurrence of several forms of early life stress in a young Australian sample. Forms of early life stress examined were: interpersonal early life stress (i.e., physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and physical and emotional neglect); adverse household environment (i.e., due to: having a household member with a mental illness or substance use disorder; having a household member who was incarcerated; loss of a parent; or, an experience of family violence); and violence outside the home (i.e., community and collective violence). 2. Examine whether the way in which early life stress is measured affects the prevalence rate of different forms of early life stress, and the strength of the relationship with working memory. In particular, whether working memory is related to one or more specific forms of early life stress or to the cumulative impact of several co-occurring forms of early life stress. 3. Investigate whether the strength of the relationship between early life stress and working memory ability is similar across behavioural working memory tasks assumed to assess different working memory domains (i.e., phonological or visuospatial), and tasks presented in different modalities (i.e., auditory or visual). 4.Examine whether behavioural and self-report measures of working memory are related and whether both these types of working memory measures are related to early life stress. These aims were investigated through a series of studies. A systematic review and meta-analysis, which included 26 publications that have previously examined the relationship between early life stress and working memory, was completed. The results of the meta-analysis indicated that a relationship was present, regardless of the working memory domain assessed (i.e., phonological or visuospatial) or the presentation modality of the working memory task stimuli (i.e., auditory or visual). We then examined whether the results of the meta-analyses were replicated in two samples of young Australian adults in Studies 1 and 2. A large battery of working memory assessments was used in Studies 1 and 2 in order to investigate whether differences in working memory tasks affected the strength of the association with early life stress. Early life stress was revealed to be a highly prevalent occurrence in childhood across both samples of young Australian adults. High rates of co-occurrence between different forms of early life stress was also identified. A significant association was observed between cumulative early life stress and self-reported working memory problems. When this relationship was further examined, significant associations were identified between self-reported working memory problems and both physical neglect and emotional abuse. No relationships were observed between early life stress and any of the behavioural working memory tasks. Significant correlations were found between the different behavioural measures of working memory, but the behavioural and self-report measures of working memory were not found to be related. Overall, the present research contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between early life stress and working memory. Implications for future research were identified. First, co-occurrence of early life stress should be considered and reported on in future research in order to disentangle whether the associations with outcomes, such as working memory, are attributed to one specific forms of early life stress or the cumulative impact of several forms of early life stress. Second, further studies could assess whether behavioural and self-report working memory assessments measure different processes, such as working memory capacity or metacognition. Third, participant characteristics such as socioeconomic background, access to support, and psychological resilience, could be further explored as factors potentially affecting the strength of the relationship between early life stress and working memory. The results may also have implications for mental health care providers working with young Australian adults, including the need for an increase in trauma-informed services.
- Subject
- early life stress; working memory; adulthood; mental health
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1422612
- Identifier
- uon:37856
- Rights
- Copyright 2020 Jade Brooke Goodman
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 172 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |